Yearly candy sales in the United States top $10 billion. Moreover, candy sales are expected to grow 3%-5% per year for the next five years. A rapidly growing trend in the candy industry is interactive candy or candy that is packaged with dispensers. Many dispensers are meant to be collectibles, while others are promotional, often used for movie or video game tie-ins.
Candy dispensers come in many different shapes and sizes. One of the first candy dispensers was known as the “Pixy-Stix.” A Pixy-Stix is a closed paper tube, which resembles a straw, containing powdered and colored candy. In order to consume the candy, a user tears or bites off an end of the tube and pours the candy into their hands or mouth. U.S. Pat. No. 2,901,357 to Epstein illustrates one such paper tube. Unfortunately, when bitten or placed in one's mouth, ends of the paper tube become saturated with saliva causing the tube to seal unexpectedly. In response, a user must manually re-open the tube. The entire process tends to be messy and the mixture of powdered candy and saliva creates an undesirable paste-like substance.
Consequently, there have been numerous attempts to develop alternative dispensers for powdered candy and other small candy items. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,138,249, 5,853,112 and 6,139,393 disclose such dispensers. However, each of the disclosed dispensers suffers from one or more drawbacks. That is, the dispensers are unsafe for children (e.g., have small detachable parts), complex and burdensome to manufacture and/or lack versatility.
Accordingly, there continues to be the need for an aesthetically pleasing candy dispenser remedying the drawbacks of previous dispensers while accomplishing the objective of dispensing candy in a manner entertaining to its users.